Longitudinal relationships between self-compassion and depressive symptoms in midlife women

Figures & data

Table 1. Demographic characteristics.

Variable	n	%	Mean	SD
Age (years)	265		57.47	5.44
BMI	253		28.04	5.55
Education
Up to Year 10	67	24.6
Up to Year 12	36	13.2
Trade certificate	5	1.8
TAFE certificate	78	28.7
Undergraduate degree	55	20.2
Postgraduate degree	25	9.2
Other	2	0.7
Missing	4	1.5
Ethnicity
Australian	252	92.6
British	6	2.2
Indigenous Australian	2	0.7
Other	6	2.2
Missing	3	1.1
Employment		1.4
Working full-time	77	28.3
Working part-time	117	43
Full-time house duties	10	3.7
Retired	48	17.6
Unemployed	5	1.8
Disability/sickness benefit	14	5.1
Missing	1	0.4
Relationship status
Married	211	77.6
Separated/divorced	31	11.4
Widowed	15	5.5
Single/never married	14	5.1
Other	1	0.4
Living situation
Living alone	32	11.8
Living with spouse/partner	155	57
Living with spouse/partner and children	57	21
Lone parent	14	5.1
Living with parent(s)	2	0.7
Other	7	2.6
Missing	5	1.8

BMI, body mass index; SD, standard deviation; TAFE, Technical and Further Education.

Table 2. Intercorrelations, means and standard deviations for demographic variables, depressive symptoms and self-compassion.

Variable	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
1. Age	1
2. Relationship status	0.04	1
3. BMI	0.06	0.08	1
4. Neg. SCS (T1)	−0.16**	0.05	−0.01	1
5. Pos. SCS (T1)	0.09	−0.02	−0.05	−0.60**	1
6. Total SCS (T1)	0.14*	−0.04	−0.02	−0.92**	0.87**	1
7. CES-D (T1)	−0.08	0.07	0.16*	0.62**	−0.48**	−0.62**	1
8. Neg. SCS (T2)	−0.16**	0.09	−0.03	0.68**	−0.49**	−0.66**	0.50**	1
9. Pos. SCS (T2)	0.11	−0.04	−0.06	−0.44**	0.58**	0.56**	−0.41**	−0.57**	1
10. Total SCS (T2)	0.17**	−0.09	−0.01	−0.65**	0.60**	0.70**	−0.52**	−0.90**	0.87**	1
11. CES-D (T2)	−0.13*	0.15*	0.08	0.50**	−0.43**	−0.52**	0.56**	0.62**	−0.53**	−0.65**	1
M	57.47	1.39	28.04	2.65	3.25	3.30	0.52	2.41	3.42	3.50	0.55
SD	5.44	0.84	5.55	0.85	0.70	0.69	0.48	0.85	0.75	0.70	0.48

*p < 0.05.

** p < 0.01.

BMI, body mass index; CES-D = Centre for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale; Neg., negative; Pos., positive; SCS = Self-Compassion Scale; T1, baseline; T2, after 5 years.

Figure 1. Cross-lagged model of self-compassion and depressive symptoms. Coefficients are standardized β values. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01. *** p < 0.001. T1, baseline; T2, after 5 years.

Table 3. Autoregressive and cross-lagged effects for self-compassion and depressive symptoms.

Effect	B	β	SE	p-Value
Autoregressive
T1 SC → T2 SC	0.60	0.59	0.05	<0.001
T1 Dep. → T2 Dep.	0.37	0.37	0.06	<0.001
Cross-lagged
T1 SC → T2 Dep.	−0.20	−0.28	0.04	<0.001
T1 Dep. → T2 SC	−0.24	−0.16	0.09	0.005

Dep., depressive symptoms; SC, self-compassion; SE, standard error; T1, baseline; T2, after 5 years.

Data availability statement

This dataset is not publicly available as the data are currently being used by the authors for ongoing projects.